I know that it’s only mid-February, but we’ve had such a mild winter that it really feels like spring has arrived. This past weekend we were on Galiano and I took advantage of the warm, clear weather to get an early start on prepping the gardens. We also did some more broome cutting and burning - a great start to spring!

It Started with a Trip to the Dump

Last year we did not add a lot of compost to the garden, and I think it affected the growing of my crops. All of my boxes were down a bit, so on the way to the ferry on Friday evening we stopped at the Vancouver Landfill to get a truck load of compost. I still cannot believe that I can fill the back of the truck for $8.00. It’s always an experience, and you never know which bit of heavy equipment will be used to fill the truck.

The operator told us to head to this pile of compost at the back of the yard. There was an eagle sitting on the top of the pile! And then we noticed that every post had an eagle on it!

We got the big excavator this time!

Two scoops and we were full.

As we were driving out of the dump, we went past a small herd of deer - very odd.

Lego Time

After getting to the island and getting ourselves sorted, we decided to do some Lego! For Christmas, our mutual gift was a Lego set of a classic Land Rover Defender, my favorite vehicle. We had done the modern version a few years back, and so it seemed like fun to add this one to the collection. We had actually started working on it last trip.

This is our objective…

It starts out looking like this…

But slowly starts to go together.

Building out the frame of the truck.

As with all their big kits, the attention to detail is unbelievable.

Later in the weekend we continued working on the Lego set and made good progress, through bag 8 of 15.

By the time the weekend was over, it was starting to look like a truck!

There’s still a long way to go.

But it is looking great!

Back to the Gardens

Saturday morning we were up and at it early, as we had a pretty big day. I needed to get the compost out of the back of the truck and onto the trees and into the garden boxes.

I started with the fruit trees in the orchard. I wanted to give them a boost this year so I started there. After that I moved to the garden boxes. All of them needed a top up, plus I needed to dig them all up to loosen the soil after the winter. I think I am ready to start planting in a few weeks!

The last time we were over I ran the chipper and created a lot of mulch. Justine joined me and went around and applied it over the compost.

The orchard is all good to go.

The two big boxes are all topped up, ready to go.

The back veggie box.

And the front one.

There was even some left for Justine’s flower boxes.

In some ways it’s a bit surprising how quickly the truck empties out. By lunch time we were all done!

I imagine this is the last thing people back east want to see right now, but yes we have flowers blooming already.

This big banana slug has been hanging out on the house for a while.

Some crocuses are about to fully open up.

And the flowering currants are close to also blossoming.

Burn Baby, Burn

Saturday afternoon we were doing a broome burn. We still had a pile of really gross, wet moldy stuff from last year, plus last time we had cut quite a bit that we did not want to leave to rot. So we had a decent sized pile to burn through. As we were staying through Monday, it meant we didn’t have to worry about the remnats of the fire and leaving.

We started just after lunch. We had a big pile to work through, but also were able to keep cutting and adding to the fire as we went along. It did not take too long - I think we were done by about 4:00.

The pile that we were starting with.

We always try and keep the size of the fire relatively small and under control.

There was a a lot of wet, old broome that we wanted to burn. It created a lot of smoke, which looked cool in the sunshine.

We made good progress, working through the pile.

Eventually it was more ash than broome, and we were done!

Time for a beer!

Sunday morning the weather was still good, so I headed down to the golf course for a round. It was quite wet, but playable. It was nice to get out and I had some company on the course.

In the afternoon, we decide to go out for a hike up to the top of Bodega Ridge. It was still quite clear and we hoped that we’d have a good view.

Our hike from our place up to the top of the ridge and back down.

Normally when we hike we hardly see another person. This time was different - we came across a couple and their dogs on the way up, and when we got to the top of the ridge there was a different couple sitting and admiring the view. So we had to extend our hike for a bit. By the time we got back, they had left and we had the place to ourselves.